


Cry Over Me

by InStiches



Series: Razor's Edge [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Dissociation, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Other, Vomiting, off-screen violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 07:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15189701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InStiches/pseuds/InStiches
Summary: Ordered to do the unthinkable, Lance makes the only choice he can.Allura picks up the peices.





	Cry Over Me

 

 

 

 

 

_I don't want to feel this_  
_Nothing can stop this pain_  
_Trying to get to a time I forget you_  
_Still tangled in yesterday_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Captain Keith Kogane, also known as the Red Hand, is stationed in the Thran System on the planet Jarre.

 

Lance goes to Earth.

 

There's something bizarre about standing above your own grave; knowing that everyone you've ever loved, who ever loved you, stood here to mourn you when you also know nothing is actually there. Lance tries not to think too much on the days where he wishes his body was here, six feet down. In a way it already is. The person those people mourned is dead. He'd died long before there was ever a funeral for him.

 

The Lance McClain those people loved died the moment he chose to become a creature of lies and death. Spying for the Alliance, during the war then after it, becoming Echo in all but reputation and name. He doesn't regret it. The Garrison needed to be stopped then and needs to be stopped now. If he's the one who has to get his hands dirty then it has to be him. He is not afraid to dirty them with blood.

 

He desperately wishes it just didn't have to be the blood of the man he loves.

 

He's backed into a corner. Refuse the council's command to stop Keith and they will send someone else, as many as they need to complete their goal. Accept and he kills the man he loves, still loves after everything.

 

He can't kill him.

 

-

 

The door to the council room opens abruptly. Allura freezes, eyes wide. Several of the surrounding diplomats of her makeshift court go pale when they turn to see who has entered and interrupted.  
  
Echo says nothing, explaining neither the bloody knife clutched in one hand or the small simple box in the other.  Instead, he strides forward from the door and tosses the box on the table they are seated around. It slides across, stopping in front of the diplomat to Allura's left. The box too is covered in blood, a rusty trail marks the cold grey of the table were it slid.  
  
"What is this?" The diplomat demands, somewhat undercut by the sickly pallor crawling down his face. Echo says nothing; the dark, blank whole-faced vizor of his helmet gives little away. The mercenary tilts his head toward the box and crosses his arms, still holding the knife. One of the other diplomats flinch back when the blood coating it drips close to his seat. The diplomat beside Allura reaches, shaking, to open the box in front of him.  
  
Allura recoils. She can hear other members of the council do the same, chairs scraping harshly over the polished floors. One heaves with a wet sound. Another faints.  
  
There, in the box, is raw chunks of an eyeball. The pieces are still seeping. Whatever the iris' color had been it was dulled now to an almost black. Allura looks away from it, nauseous. Instead, she looks back at Echo.  
  
Besides the man himself, only she in this room knows what lead Lance McClain, Garrison cargo pilot, to become Echo, mercenary and bounty hunter. Only she knows the hard choices and the compromises. She does not know what brought him to this. Assassinations of key enemies in the middle of a war: understandable. Deliberate mutilation in a time of quasi peace is something she hadn't thought him capable off, hadn't even considered.  
  
"What... what is the meaning of this, Echo?" She demands, a cold feeling grasping her heart. If she'd missed signs somehow...If she had lost her friend in it all...  
  
"You did not attend the last council meeting, Princess," Echo says finally, his voice still distorted both by his helmet and the voice modulator in his suit. "It was decided then that the Red Hand must be taken care off. Too much trouble." He turns away from her but to the diplomat beside her, the one who had opened the box. Said diplomat is now paler, swallowing hard and obviously when Allura turns to focus on him too.  
  
"The Red Hand will never pilot a Garrison craft again. As the council demanded."  
  
Echo turns back to her then and says, somewhat softer:  
  
"I will take my leave now Princess."  
  
Then he bows slightly and heel turns to leave the council room. The door hisses shut after him.

 

“This meeting is over.” Allura announces and follows him.

 

 

-

 

 

Echo can’t hear anything but his own heavy breathing, can’t focus on anything but putting one foot in front of the other. The hallway between the council room and the elevator seems impossibly long. He gets there eventually, no one approaching to intercept or talk to him. His hand shakes when he punches in the level of his quarters. It leaves a bloody smear behind. He stares at that stain until the elevator doors open to his level.

 

He goes to the bathroom first, fumbling with the release for his vizor. It opens just as he forks over the sink and vomits. He groans, clutching the sides of the sink and resting his forehead on the cool metal. His knees tremble. He stumbles away from the sink before they give out, thumbing back hard against the opposite wall and sliding down to the floor. He lifts his hands, still shaking, and stares blankly at the blood on them. It’s not until it blurs before him that he realizes he has been brought to tears.

 

It takes effort to drag himself into the shower. He doesn’t bother removing his armor. He doesn’t bother standing. He just folds in on himself, curling into the corner and watching the blood wash away.

 

He does not know how long he stays there.

 

“Lance.”

 

He flinches, armor grating against the shower wall in protest. A hand gently runs fingers through his hair, another pulling him away from the wall. They start removing his armor. He puts up a token protest but settles when they stop tugging on his armor to cup his face and turn him to look up at their owner.

 

“Lance,” Allura says again, softly. He chokes once on the knot of emotion winding in his throat. Allura pulls him into her arms before it unravels.

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's short 
> 
> Warning by the way for off screen eye mutilation.


End file.
